Previously on The Thick of it Season 4 Episode 5 “Series 4, Episode 5″, The unravelling of the key-worker housing sell-off policy sees both Nicola and Peter going onto the defensive and taking the moral high ground.

On this week’s Episode title “Series 4, Episode 6″, Everybody has a lot of questions to answer about the suicide of a key-worker after his flat was sold off. Lord Goolding is known as a fair man, but he isn’t going to stand for any nonsense. and his team of expert inquisitors wont either. The Thick of It is a British comedy television series that satirises the inner workings of modern British government. It was first broadcast on BBC Four in 2005, and has so far completed fourteen half-hour episodes and two special hour-long episodes to coincide with Christmas and Gordon Brown’s appointment as prime minister. To date, the series has earned Best New Comedy and Best Comedy Performer for Chris Langham at the 2005 British Comedy Awards, Best Situation Comedy and Best Comedy Performance, also for Langham at the 2006 BAFTAs, and Best Comedy Performance Male and Female for Peter Capaldi and Rebecca Front, as well as Best Situation Comedy a second time at the 2010 BAFTAs. Before any further episodes could be made, the principal character of Hugh Abbot, the minister for social affairs, was written out of the series, as a result of Langham’s arrest and later conviction on charges of possession of child pornography. The series has been described as the 21st century’s answer to Yes Minister, highlighting the struggles of the media and spin doctors against civil servants. Series creator Armando Iannucci describes it as “Yes Minister meets Larry Sanders”. The former civil servant Martin Sixsmith is an adviser to the writing team, giving some of the storylines an element of realism. A feature film spin-off, In the Loop, was released in the UK on 17 April 2009. The third series was eight episodes long and started on 24 October 2009, on BBC Two and BBC HD. A fourth series, seven episodes long, began filming in March 2012 and is expected to air on BBC Two on September 8th 2012. In a September 2012 interview, Iannucci said the fourth series of the programme would probably be its last although he is open to future specials. The action centres on the fictitious Department of Social Affairs and Citizenship (“DoSAC” – previously the Department of Social Affairs, or “DSA”, prior to the reshuffle of episode five), which supposedly came out of the prime minister’s passing enthusiasm for “joined-up government”. Thus it acts as a “super department” overseeing many others, which enables different political themes to be dealt with in the programme, similar to the Department for Administrative Affairs in Yes Minister. Hugh Abbot, played by Chris Langham, is a blundering minister heading the department, who is continually trying to do his job under the watchful eye of Malcolm Tucker (Peter Capaldi), Number 10′s highly aggressive and domineering “enforcer”. The programme also features James Smith as senior special adviser Glen Cullen, Chris Addison as junior policy adviser Ollie Reeder, and Joanna Scanlan as civil service press secretary Terri Coverley. The series is revamped for the third series with Hugh Abbot being replaced as Head of DoSAC by Nicola Murray (Rebecca Front), who arrives without her own staff, so Ollie and Glen find themselves keeping their jobs. The series is once again revamped for series 4 with Peter Mannion MP (Roger Allam), the new Secretary of State for The Department of Social Affairs and Citizenship (DoSAC), supported by his team of special advisors, commanded by Number 10′s Director of Communications Stewart Pearson (Vincent Franklin) and thwarted by his new Coalition partner, DOSAC’s Junior Minister Fergus Williams MP (Geoffrey Streatfeild). Nicola Murray MP and spin doctor Malcolm Tucker both are now consigned to Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition, but still desperately hoping for a return to power.